Link to Chapter One

While running down the street I began hearing sirens,

so we ducked in an alley and a modcar zoomed past. As I stopped to catch my breath I heard more sirens and more modcars rushing past. “Holy shit! How many mods are they sending?” I yelled. While trying to catch his breath Bob explained “That's not for us... They never send that many... And look, none of them stopped at the recycler. Get your deadtag on, so we can get into the tower.”

I put the deadtag over my third eye to blend in and it occurred to me that Bob would probably try to rip me off at the tower, so I said “Look at this,” while holding the stolen mods. “What is it?” Bob asked. “I'm not sure, but I stole it off a coder, so you know it has to be something good, maybe it's a lifetime supply of morphine” I replied.

We both knew that it was not the coveted morphine patch, but I could see his eyes light up with excitement, wondering about its value and what would it unlock. “After we get done with the tower I want to get this thing checked out” I said to avoid having to chase Bob down after we scored.

While exited the Alley I noticed that the streets were empty

and frightened people were staring at us through their windows, which made me feel uneasy. We quickly ran to the next block and entered the old tower. I never liked towers like this, they were filled with temps who have no real employment, they just go around fixing things in the city for the overpriced bounty that is decided by some outdated algorithm.

Temps are the lowest of the low, I once saw a temp stab an old woman that was cleaning a window to claim her bounty. Then after he verified the transfer he began screaming “Mom, are you alright?” But that is not the worst of it, when the bounties run dry theses people tend to go wild and from what I had been hearing, this was a bad time to be entering the tower.

Our deadtags fooled the doorman into letting us pass,

but as we walked by a hallway I saw three men kicking and stomping a man in my peripheral vision off to the right. I dared not to look over because they had no way of knowing if our tags were real or fake, which is dangerous either way.

If we were wearing real eyetags their infractions would have been recorded on our subchains and if we were wearing deadtags they could rob or kill us with impunity, so it was best to get in and get out of this retched tower as quickly as possible. When we arrived at the elevator, I saw that it's outside doors had been brutally ripped off. The elevator inside had fallen from a great height and took on the shape of a five foot tall accordion with a blood stained interior.

As I opened the stairwell I was surprised to find a prostitute hard at work on her knees and a criminally religious man screaming “Electric Jesus!” while enjoying her company. When we arrived outside the dealer's apartment Bob said “Give me the silver.” I handed the silver over and said “Four bags!” in a demanding tone. Bob knocked in an unusual pattern to inform the dealer to get his displacer ready and we heard loud foot steps as if someone was running past the door.

The door flung open revealing a screaming crackhead

“Get in here! Are you watching this shit?” I looked over and saw a big guy sitting on the couch staring at the TV. “What?” Bob asked. The man screamed “A fucking moderator lost his fucking mind, pulled off his eyetag and is out there shooting other mods. Can you believe this shit?” Bob was uninterested in the ravings of a crackhead and said “Let me talk to you in the back.”

Then the big guy got up and followed Bob and the crackhead into a back room. I sat at the couch to see what was happening and TV's screen was split, on the left I saw the rogue moderator running and firing a gun from the perspective of the closest lookie loo's eyetag and on the right there was a beautiful news anchor named Amanda Jones who reported “We cannot confirm or deny that he is a corporatist spy or if he has any involvement with the Loki Order.”

Then the left screen went black and Amanda Jones said “This is just in, the Loki Order has disrupted the subchains surrounding the rogue moderator. Folks stay indoors for your own safety. At this time at least three are confirmed dead and there are...” But then I heard the terrifying metallic sound of a gun getting cocked behind me, so I quickly jumped up and turned around to see a crackhead pointing a gun at me.

“What the fuck!”

I screamed. With a smile on his face the crackhead said “Your boy sold you out for a gram of dope.” I looked at Bob and he gave a shameful smile and then waived farewell as he quickly left the apartment. The big guy walked over and said “Give me the morphine patch.” I held my palms up and screamed “Wait! I give you the patch and I walk, right?” The crackhead gave a big smile revealing his few remaining teeth and said “It ain't that kinda party.”

As the big guy got closer I realized that I was going to have to fight my way out of this. My adrenalin began pumping and everything went into slow motion as I reached down for the cattle prod. The big guy's hands slowly went for my neck, so I gave his left leg a shock, which dropped him to his knees.

Then I quickly turned toward the crackhead and heard a loud bang and saw a bright flash which faded to black. As I drifted into the darkness looking for the light, I could feel all my guilt slip away and I was overcome with joy when I realized that a part of me was going to be repurposed in the same location as my family.

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Links

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Introduction
The Death of a Salesman
The Death of a Hitchhiker – Series